This is a guest post by Paul Rankin, a Brisbane-based filmmaker.
There appears to be a growing trend in the filmmaking world of the Make Us An Ad (or Music Video), Win A Prize style competition. The caveat of course is that you only win a prize if your video is selected, the rest of the entrants (i.e. the losers) don’t get their costs covered, but can sleep soundly knowing that their work and valuable ideas are now the property of some corporate entity. Overlooking the fact that these competitions are judged by people who lack the intelligence to know the value of concept creation (i.e. the importance of sitting down with a client and shaping the concept until both parties feel it is the best concept with which to proceed) it speaks of a deplorably dismissive attitude towards the value of the work of filmmakers.
Paul Rankin.
A friend recently directed me toward one such music video competition, Genero.TV, its point of difference being that there are sixteen songs, each from a different artist, to choose from. However, there remained only a single cash prize of $4,000. (There were some incidental prizes like DVDs, the total value of which is not worth detailing.) This means that fifteen other bands get a free music video, hand-picked from the selection of entries, which becomes a promotional tool (arguably a band’s most useful promotional tool) with no revenue going to the filmmakers, the ones who did all the work. That is to say, while your music video may be good enough to have the honour of Official Video bestowed upon it, it’s not good enough to warrant pay. There’s also every likelihood that the bands will then sell the music videos on iTunes, the revenue from which you’ll never see.
Bend over, assume the position.
But of course there is the one lucky winner who walks away with $4,000. Let’s do the math here: the best music video out of sixteen (not including the unsuccessful entries) deserves only $4,000? If the video is going to beat out the competition, it’s probably going to cost — that old chestnut: you can’t have good, cheap, and fast, only two — so $4,000 might just cover costs. Where’s the actual prize? Let’s assume that one-sixteenth of all music videos are great, and considering that in order to beat out however many other entries, the winning entry must be really great — are we to believe that the going rate for making a really great music video is $4,000? I must have just fallen really fucking far down the rabbit hole because that doesn’t cover much in the way of rent and food. And remember that these competitions are being judged by people who lacked the foresight to see any value in developing a concept with the filmmakers, so they’re probably not great judges on the whole. So, what happens to the other entrants, who, in all likelihood, are more talented and have better ideas than the victor? Well they’ve just wasted a bunch of time and money that they could have spent making something that directly furthers their career, something that they’re truly passionate about, that adds to the world rather than markets to it. And free from the guidelines of the competition, these filmmakers could have been making something that allows them true freedom of artistic expression, because let’s face it, the opportunities for personal artistic expression shrink dramatically when you’re making a film with someone else’s money.
Fan-sourcing music videos: opportunity, or rip-offortunity?
The counter argument is that the filmmakers are gaining “exposure” (a term that should be understood with such sarcasm that the quotation marks should be a mandatory fixture). Sure, maybe for the winner the champagne flows and the lucrative offers come rolling in. Maybe. Probably not. The “exposure” thing doesn’t make sense to me; I’m a subscriber to the Field Of Dreams business model: “if you build it, they will come”, and if you build something great (the kind of one-in-sixteen great) you won’t have to worry about some middleman providing this elusive “exposure”. Instead these style of competitions are unscrupulously peddling the filmmaking equivalent of the Get Rich Quick Scheme — they’ll provide the ready-and-willing recognisable brand (be it commercial or artistic) on which you can piggyback your talent and ability, and fast-track your way to filmmaking stardom. Just like those pyramid schemes, these should be avoided. Working on spec is nothing new, it’s not working for free, it’s the simple exchange of work for scarce opportunity. However, in these competitions there is no guarantee of opportunity — if you win, you receive opportunity but if you don’t, you’ve just done a whole lot of work for free.
But it’s not that much work. Music videos and TVCs, these are just things that one throws together in a weekend, right? Whether or not those who create these competitions understand the amount of work that quality music videos and TVCs demand (they likely don’t) is irrelevant — these competitions push a belief into the public consciousness that filmmaking is a throwaway hobby, something done in one’s downtime from earning money at a “real job”. The idea is that it’s great for the winner and no great loss for the losers, because filmmaking is a cheap and easy pastime, and hey, it’s just another weekend.
Paul Rankin is a Brisbane-based filmmaker. His latest work is ‘Shakeytown’ for Brisbane indie pop band I Heart Hiroshima (embedded below).
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Mick Entwisle 11.12.09 at 5:19 pm
Hi Paul,
I’m one of the founders of Genero.tv and read your post. Appreciate getting feedback on what we’re doing and I wanted to respond to your post to give our perspective on some of the points you raised.
Firstly I acknowledge your concerns about the monetary prizes on offer in the first competition round. Hopefully you can understand that being a start-up there were significant costs involved in getting the business launched which meant we couldn’t put up the prizes we would have otherwise liked to initially. The worthiness of Genero.tv shouldn’t be judged based on the first of many competition rounds alone though and like most start-up businesses we’ll continue to evolve and improve over time. In fact our key focus in the next competition round is improving the appeal and rewards for film makers.
We also fully recognised that the level of prize money would impact on the number of quality videos entered in the first round and we may have had more entries if we were able to offer larger prizes. But we were confident there would be many who the prizes would appeal enough to and we’re pretty happy with the number of quality entries we received. Obviously no-one is being forced to enter the competition so it’s up to each individual to decide whether they think the potential benefits are worthy of their time and efforts. Many people already make their own music videos for no financial reward on sites like YouTube so for them we’re offering rewards which at the moment don’t exist.
In evaluating the prizes it does seem like you’ve overlooked the perspective of a music fan who also happens to be a film maker in your post. You haven’t mentioned at all some of the prizes that are the most appealing for many people – attending recording sessions with The Temper Trap and Easy Star All-Stars, concert backstage passes for many of the bands, a DJ workshop with DJ Izm (Bliss n Eso) etc. The opportunity to have made an official music video for artists they love is also something that I think you’ve undervalued from the perspective of many passionate music fans/film makers. It sounds like none of those things appeal to you which is fine, but for many others these represent money can’t buy experiences.
I don’t agree with your dismissal of the potential exposure in being associated with artists with international fan bases like UNKLE, The Temper Trap etc., but again that’s for individuals to decide so I’m not going to go into why I have an alternative view on that.
The part that I’m confused about are your views on creative freedom and in particular this comment: “these competitions are judged by people who lack the intelligence to know the value of concept creation” and that it “it speaks of a deplorably dismissive attitude towards the value of the work of filmmakers”. Firstly in most cases it’s the actual artist or label that is judging but I assume you’re making reference to Genero.tv rather than them. From our perspective we completely understand the value of working with a client to come up with a mutually satisfactory concept, but for someone working in a creative field such as yourself to completely discount the opportunity afforded by the artists and labels to work with a ‘blank canvas’ is a little perplexing.
Concept creation has a place and in many instances is a key determinant for a successful project, but in this example I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say, especially because later in your post you then talk about how the film makers could have been making something that allows them “true freedom of artistic expression”. Your initially espousing the benefits of ‘concept creation’ and indeed tying it’s importance to people’s intellect, but then suggesting people should spend time where they have complete freedom of creative expression. That sounds at least slightly contradictory?
In our case we’re focused on allowing film makers complete creative freedom. For many creative people no more inspiration is required than music and lyrics, they appreciate being given free reign to be as creative and innovative as they can and in our view that’s exactly what we’re encouraging. If you don’t think we are we’d love feedback on how we can improve that.
I hope this at least explains partially our perspective. It’s not for everybody obviously but we’ll definitely be working hard to appeal to a broad range of film makers around the world and we’re open to ideas on how we can continually improve it so feel free to get in touch if you have any more feedback. Stay tuned for the next comp which will be bigger and better than the first round and hopefully it addresses some of the concerns you’ve raised.
All the best
Mick Entwisle